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Jesus and Tiger Woods

Sat, 04/20/2019 - 10:37am

This past Sunday morning, sitting in my new church home, I was moved. It wasn’t the words to a sermon, though my pastor Tommy Earl Burton brought a great message. It wasn’t a Sunday School lesson or anyone’s testimony. It was a trumpet and a piano.
In the middle of the service Sunday morning, we had the most beautiful representation of Palm Sunday, as Richard Lovelace mastered the keys of the piano as he always does, and Margie Manning played the sweetest notes from her trumpet as they presented the song Via Dolorosa.
The song itself is a beautiful pictorial of Christ’s triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem on his way to His crucifixion. He rode in on a donkey, in meekness, contrary to the normal way a king or leader might enter. The only fanfare came from His followers, as they praised Him and lay their cloaks before Him as He traveled.
To me, it is the perfect illustration of His meekness, as He tried to show us how to live. He was the greatest man to ever walk the face of the Earth and had more power in His hands than anyone ever in the history of time, yet he rode to His death on a lowly donkey.
Maybe we could all take heed to that gesture. Perhaps we all might learn a lesson in it, in that we often believe ourselves to be important, when in reality, we are so trivial. Often times in life we get caught up in our place in life, our social status, the amount of money we have in the bank, or some position we might hold, and think ourselves to be more than we really are.
I think, on this week of Easter, that we might want to listen closely to the words of the one who had everything, and chose to be a carpenter. He chose to walk the roads and ride the waves with the common man, void of pomp and pleasures, and spread the message of hope, love and peace.
Maybe, just maybe, we should learn from that message.
On another note, the sports lover in me cannot go a week without mentioning my favorite golfer, Tiger Woods.
It’s possible that you don’t care at all about golf and that you weren’t watching Sunday afternoon when Tiger sank his putt on the 18th green at Augusta, and won his fifth green jacket. Maybe you have never watched the game of golf, and could care less who won the Masters, but odds are, you have heard the name of Tiger Woods. His name was blasted all over the news and social media a few years back because of mistakes he made. Terrible mistakes that cost him so much, personally and financially.
To me, that makes his winning this week’s Masters tournament even more special. Tiger is the picture of a man that sank to his lowest low, and rose again. He overcame his weakness and paid his penance. He came back from that deep valley, pulled himself up by his bootstraps with a lot of hard work and dedication, and got himself in the position to be a champion again. His triumph moved me to tears.
Perhaps his victory on Sunday was the culmination of a life’s work. Maybe it is an example for all of us in that we can all rise from the depths of our despair and have life again. His win moved me, because I am in the midst of my own battle and I hope to have that glorious victory myself one day.
Maybe you do too.
We all have examples and paths to follow to come back from the deep. We all want to have life again. We all want to pump our fists in the air one day and say, “I did it. I won.”
There is another that had that victory and is an example of the path to follow. He had that great victory that we want to have. He conquered the lowest of lows and came back victorious. He had the greatest victory of all time and He truly was the greatest of all time. I want to be more like Him. You should too.
He rode in on a donkey.